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>I know it seems hard, but just stop using Google, Amazon, Meta products. I noticed your own app's website [0] hosts videos on YouTube [1] and uses Stripe as a

>I know it seems hard, but just stop using Google, Amazon, Meta products. I noticed your own app's website [0] hosts videos on YouTube [1] and uses Stripe as a payment processor [2], which is hosted on AWS. You also mentioned that your app is vibe coded [3]; the AI labs that facilitated your vibecoding likely built and run their models using Meta's PyTorch or Google's TensorFlow. "Just stop using" makes for a catchy manifesto in HackerNews comments, but the reality is a lot more complicated than that. [0] https://wordsunite.us/ https://wordsunite.us/ [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbCM99cz9W8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbCM99cz9W8 [2] https://wordsunite.us/terms https://wordsunite.us/terms [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45644698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45644698

oceansky 8mo ago
Someone commented on a HN threads on just de-googling and he couldn't even pick up his kids without a gmail or apple account. Just not using it is really unrealistic for the average person at this moment
- Schiendelman 8mo ago
  Apple isn't on the evil list, aside from the kowtowing every powerful leader must do not to have their business attacked.
  - anonym29 8mo ago
    Apple was a PRISM partner. They share just as much with the NSA as Microsoft and Google.
    - gruez 8mo ago
      >They share just as much with the NSA as Microsoft and Google. For something like icloud vs gmail/gdrive, they're approximately the same, but that doesn't mean "they share just as much [...] as Microsoft and Google. If they never collected data in the first place, they don't have to share with NSA. The most obvious would be for location data, which apple keeps on-device and google did not (although they did switch to on device a few years ago).
    - mrcwinn 8mo ago
      Remember when Apple PR spent a bunch of time putting Tim Cook alongside images of RFK? Civil rights hero! That campaign wouldn’t land these days.
      - wredcoll 8mo ago
        Rfk the brainworms guy?
        trevwilson 8mo ago
        In this case, the same-named father of the brainworms guy
  - embedding-shape 8mo ago
    > Apple isn't on the evil list Yeah, Tim Apple handing over a 24-karat gold plaque to the sitting president is completely normal behavior for CEOs to engage in, and not at all about just making as much money as possible. He had to do that, otherwise Apple as a company would disappear tomorrow. They're just trying to survive.
    - ambicapter 8mo ago
      Unless you're going to demonstrate that handing over a golden plaque implies handing over privacy data to government agencies, I'm going to prefer the former over the latter.
      - somenameforme 8mo ago
        Apple has already been outed as one of the participating companies in PRISM. [1] So that privacy boat has long since sailed. The public legal wrangling is likely just a mutually beneficial facade. PRISM is almost certainly illegal, but nobody can legally challenge it because the data provided from it is never directly used. Law enforcement engage in parallel construction [2] where they obtain the same evidence in a different way. So nobody can prove they were harmed by PRISM, and thus all challenges against it get tossed for lack of standing. It's very dumb. But in any case the legal battles work as nice PR for Apple (see how much we care about privacy) and also as a great scenario for the government because any battles they win are domains where they can now legally use information directly to the courts and sidestep the parallel construction. That also takes the burden off of Apple PR in giving that information up because it can be framed as the courts and government forcing them, rather than them collaborating in mass data collection. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
    - brookst 8mo ago
      I don’t like that we’ve gotten to a place where presumably serious people think that giving a token prize to a narcissist is the same thing as engaging in massive surveillance of the entire population.
- devsda 8mo ago
  I know it is probably not the American way but the only way to address this problem is to make laws that prevent a duopoly, penalize anti-competitive behavior and push open-source standards for software/hardware. Unfortunately, the status quo also means the US (and its tech giants) has real power and control over other countries' technology sector. So, no party in America will make or enforce laws that will change the status quo within the country or overseas.
  - throwawayqqq11 8mo ago
    I have little hope, since the EU is lobbyist-infested like the US, but there is a chance the EU will fund FOSS platforms over centralized solutions. There are already several EU wide or national funds for that and it would help immensly when that money would go to burning out solo devs and maybe even to orgs like mozilla. https://eu-stf.openforumeurope.org/ https://eu-stf.openforumeurope.org/
  - this_user 8mo ago
    > make laws that prevent a duopoly, penalize anti-competitive behavior and push open-source standards for software/hardware. None of this is legally easy to implement or enforce, and any attempt of doing it is virtually guaranteed to create an unbelievable amount of unintended consequences as people figure out ways to game this new set of rules.
    - devsda 8mo ago
      We need something similar to FIPS for interoperable software and standards. Organizations will fall in line when money is at stake. Say for example your local/state/federal agency publishes (or accepts) documents exclusively in ods/odf instead of proprietary formats, that will automatically drive adoption of software and prevent lock-in.
      - rzerowan 8mo ago
        Agressive interoperability at the protpcol and exchange format - its why email mostly works even forcing Google to back off when they tried to change email to be rendered by their cdn (i forget the name of the offering - but was similar to what news pages were being pushed for speedup). Bad actors will always abound - like Microsoft spiking the documnt standards by pushing through ooxml when odt/odf was gaining traction. Or basically just coercing the decision makers like in Berlin(?) where they moved their offices into hte city to get them to drop Linux/Openoffice.
- prmoustache 8mo ago
  > [...] and he couldn't even pick up his kids without a gmail or apple account. How so?
  - jasonjayr 8mo ago
    A lot of schools use apps like 'ParentSquare' to interact and manage the student/teacher/parent relationship, and do not offer the same level of communication through traditional channels anymore.
    - SoftTalker 8mo ago
      This is because social media has trained today's young parents to be completely entitled assholes and teachers can only take so much of their abuse. What teacher is going to want to sit down for a conference with a parent who whips out a phone to record the meeting and then posts selectively edited excerpts online in order to get a few upvotes on a social platform.
    - prmoustache 8mo ago
      And these apps require a google account?
      - jasonjayr 8mo ago
        They require a phone that can log into an App store, so unless parents can work around that, then yes?
        jjulius 8mo ago
        Nonsense. My kid just started kindergarten this past year - I've never been required to log into ParentSquare through a GMail address and I have only ever accessed it through a browser on a laptop. (Damn, I failed at my attempt to stop posting.)
        joquarky 8mo ago
- bad_haircut72 8mo ago
  Everything counts, this attitude is very defeatist. Stop using it the easy ways at first, and then make conscious steps to get off these services going forward.
  - prophesi 8mo ago
    It's probably at the same scale as gas/oil companies and recycling at this point. I'd like to believe my individual efforts will make a dent in the surveillance state, but at this volume legislation is truly the only meaningful effort to defang these multi-billion dollar companies.
- shevy-java 8mo ago
  While that may be true, people need to start somewhere. Otherwise the future will just be even more sniffing done by private entities. Do we want a sneaky Skynet that looks more like 1984?
  - joquarky 8mo ago
    The guy who is obsessed with using Lord of the Rings to name his companies certainly does want that.
- trinsic2 8mo ago
  Yea I noticed many of these sevices won't allow an email address not hosted with a provider that wasn't Google,Microsoft, or apple where they can collect other details. I think i tried to sign up for VanceAI, it would only accept gmail or discord connected account as a sign in.
  - rsync 8mo ago
    "... tried to sign up for VanceAI, it would only accept gmail or discord connected account as a sign in ..." I don't know what "VanceAI" is but I am confused ... why would they not want corporate (as in, Fortune 500) users to sign up ?
- iugtmkbdfil834 8mo ago
  Oh well, I guess there is nothing to be done. Pack it up everyone. It is over. You can't do anything. No one can learn anything. No. You heard the guy above. It is over. Go home. Do nothing.
  - oceansky 8mo ago
    I don't mean to say that nothing can be done, I was just agreeing that it's often more complicated than it looks.
    - bdangubic 8mo ago
      it is not complicated at all if you have resolve and understand what the ramifications of not doing anything are. I quit all social media 6 years ago, thought it would be hard, took about a week total to not even think about it. had same “trouble” in school with whatsapp groups and whatnot, threatened to sue, everything got moved to the SMS within a week………
iririririr 8mo ago
Talking about anti-tech-monopolies and using Stripe-paypal is extra ironic. I can understand aws, youtube, being on google index, and other things as they sometimes are the most cost efficient or vendors don't offer alternatives... but stripe-paypal is more expensive and worse than the less-bad alternatives. jeez.
ironsmoke 8mo ago
Perfect is the enemy of good.
miyuru 8mo ago
his app has also Google, Apple logins and for first time I have seen, login with meta button. https://app.wordsunite.us/ https://app.wordsunite.us/
jbstack 8mo ago
It doesn't have to be a binary choice between "don't use it ever" and "continue using it as much as you are now". If people stopped using these services 50% of the time, it would have a huge impact.
- random2021 8mo ago
  In concept what you say is correct but reality is complex. There are very few providers that implement friction free login/password and importantly security. A large number of email providers didn't implement 2FA until very recently. Even those that have terrible apps, ad infested, no app password or oAuth etc. so many governments use MS hosted services. It is akin to Visa/MasterCard duopoly. It is hard to escape but even if one does it then it resulted only inconvenience. I still don't have my cards in phone - neither will google change path nor will govts force a change.
  - jbstack 8mo ago
    I don't see any contradiction here with what I said. If you feel that using Google for email is unavoidable, that can be the part that you keep using. You can still easily ditch a lot of other things. E.g. Pixel phone, Google Docs, Google Drive, AWS. Each of those has plenty of, arguably better, alternatives.
    - random2021 8mo ago
      > Each of those has plenty of, arguably better, alternatives. That's the incorrect premise - for that 50% that you hope to ditch. Pixel phone is not inherently bad. One can even buy them second hand. The information lock in from US is impossible to escape for majority of connected world citizens.
      - jbstack 8mo ago
        I don't understand your point. We're talking about ways to reduce dependence on big corp products. Some people object on the basis that it's not always feasible. I've responded that it doesn't have to be all or nothing. You've identified some products that you think you can't move away from. I've identified some that I think you probably can, and acknowledged that you might still by stuck with those others. I don't see how your latest comment fits in. In the context of the present debate, Pixel phone is inherently bad because it's a Google product. You're putting money in Google's bank account when you buy one, and you're running your phone the way Google wants you to. The point of the debate is whether it's feasible to move away from such things. In the case of a Pixel phone, it is possible (to some extent, anyway).
nxpnsv 8mo ago
But you can still reduce your exposure. Giving in to hopelessness seems suboptimal.
wordsunite 8mo ago
The comments are fair. My post was quick and lacked details as I was frustrated in the ever increasing enshitification of the web. What I meant to convey, from my personal experience, is that it seemed hard to get off of platforms like X, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon Prime, Alexa, Ring, Google Photos, etc. but then I did it and didn’t miss them. These small moves by a lot of people, I believe, can still make a difference. It’s not perfect, but it’s something. Do I still use some services? Of course, I have Gmail and WhatsApp, and use a lot of Apple products. When I can, I choose intentionally what I use since there’s no perfect companies out there, but there are “better” ones (whatever that may be in one’s opinion). I chose cloudflare for hosting and Anthropic for vibe coding. Allowing people to use existing login info versus exposing them to more risk with self managed auth was a choice I made. There are tons of choices we make every day so trying to be more intentional is a good start. Nobody is perfect, but we can try to improve each day in these choices we make.
Gormo 8mo ago
I don't think using AWS has quite the same privacy implications to using Amazon's own SaaS services.
m3kw9 8mo ago
It’s hard that’s why he is still using it

oceansky 8mo ago

Someone commented on a HN threads on just de-googling and he couldn't even pick up his kids without a gmail or apple account. Just not using it is really unrealistic for the average person at this moment

Schiendelman 8mo ago
Apple isn't on the evil list, aside from the kowtowing every powerful leader must do not to have their business attacked.
- anonym29 8mo ago
  Apple was a PRISM partner. They share just as much with the NSA as Microsoft and Google.
  - gruez 8mo ago
    >They share just as much with the NSA as Microsoft and Google. For something like icloud vs gmail/gdrive, they're approximately the same, but that doesn't mean "they share just as much [...] as Microsoft and Google. If they never collected data in the first place, they don't have to share with NSA. The most obvious would be for location data, which apple keeps on-device and google did not (although they did switch to on device a few years ago).
  - mrcwinn 8mo ago
    Remember when Apple PR spent a bunch of time putting Tim Cook alongside images of RFK? Civil rights hero! That campaign wouldn’t land these days.
    - wredcoll 8mo ago
      Rfk the brainworms guy?
      - trevwilson 8mo ago
        In this case, the same-named father of the brainworms guy
- embedding-shape 8mo ago
  > Apple isn't on the evil list Yeah, Tim Apple handing over a 24-karat gold plaque to the sitting president is completely normal behavior for CEOs to engage in, and not at all about just making as much money as possible. He had to do that, otherwise Apple as a company would disappear tomorrow. They're just trying to survive.
  - ambicapter 8mo ago
    Unless you're going to demonstrate that handing over a golden plaque implies handing over privacy data to government agencies, I'm going to prefer the former over the latter.
    - somenameforme 8mo ago
      Apple has already been outed as one of the participating companies in PRISM. [1] So that privacy boat has long since sailed. The public legal wrangling is likely just a mutually beneficial facade. PRISM is almost certainly illegal, but nobody can legally challenge it because the data provided from it is never directly used. Law enforcement engage in parallel construction [2] where they obtain the same evidence in a different way. So nobody can prove they were harmed by PRISM, and thus all challenges against it get tossed for lack of standing. It's very dumb. But in any case the legal battles work as nice PR for Apple (see how much we care about privacy) and also as a great scenario for the government because any battles they win are domains where they can now legally use information directly to the courts and sidestep the parallel construction. That also takes the burden off of Apple PR in giving that information up because it can be framed as the courts and government forcing them, rather than them collaborating in mass data collection. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
  - brookst 8mo ago
    I don’t like that we’ve gotten to a place where presumably serious people think that giving a token prize to a narcissist is the same thing as engaging in massive surveillance of the entire population.
devsda 8mo ago
I know it is probably not the American way but the only way to address this problem is to make laws that prevent a duopoly, penalize anti-competitive behavior and push open-source standards for software/hardware. Unfortunately, the status quo also means the US (and its tech giants) has real power and control over other countries' technology sector. So, no party in America will make or enforce laws that will change the status quo within the country or overseas.
- throwawayqqq11 8mo ago
  I have little hope, since the EU is lobbyist-infested like the US, but there is a chance the EU will fund FOSS platforms over centralized solutions. There are already several EU wide or national funds for that and it would help immensly when that money would go to burning out solo devs and maybe even to orgs like mozilla. https://eu-stf.openforumeurope.org/ https://eu-stf.openforumeurope.org/
- this_user 8mo ago
  > make laws that prevent a duopoly, penalize anti-competitive behavior and push open-source standards for software/hardware. None of this is legally easy to implement or enforce, and any attempt of doing it is virtually guaranteed to create an unbelievable amount of unintended consequences as people figure out ways to game this new set of rules.
  - devsda 8mo ago
    We need something similar to FIPS for interoperable software and standards. Organizations will fall in line when money is at stake. Say for example your local/state/federal agency publishes (or accepts) documents exclusively in ods/odf instead of proprietary formats, that will automatically drive adoption of software and prevent lock-in.
    - rzerowan 8mo ago
      Agressive interoperability at the protpcol and exchange format - its why email mostly works even forcing Google to back off when they tried to change email to be rendered by their cdn (i forget the name of the offering - but was similar to what news pages were being pushed for speedup). Bad actors will always abound - like Microsoft spiking the documnt standards by pushing through ooxml when odt/odf was gaining traction. Or basically just coercing the decision makers like in Berlin(?) where they moved their offices into hte city to get them to drop Linux/Openoffice.
prmoustache 8mo ago
> [...] and he couldn't even pick up his kids without a gmail or apple account. How so?
- jasonjayr 8mo ago
  A lot of schools use apps like 'ParentSquare' to interact and manage the student/teacher/parent relationship, and do not offer the same level of communication through traditional channels anymore.
  - SoftTalker 8mo ago
    This is because social media has trained today's young parents to be completely entitled assholes and teachers can only take so much of their abuse. What teacher is going to want to sit down for a conference with a parent who whips out a phone to record the meeting and then posts selectively edited excerpts online in order to get a few upvotes on a social platform.
  - prmoustache 8mo ago
    And these apps require a google account?
    - jasonjayr 8mo ago
      They require a phone that can log into an App store, so unless parents can work around that, then yes?
      - jjulius 8mo ago
        Nonsense. My kid just started kindergarten this past year - I've never been required to log into ParentSquare through a GMail address and I have only ever accessed it through a browser on a laptop. (Damn, I failed at my attempt to stop posting.)
        joquarky 8mo ago
bad_haircut72 8mo ago
Everything counts, this attitude is very defeatist. Stop using it the easy ways at first, and then make conscious steps to get off these services going forward.
- prophesi 8mo ago
  It's probably at the same scale as gas/oil companies and recycling at this point. I'd like to believe my individual efforts will make a dent in the surveillance state, but at this volume legislation is truly the only meaningful effort to defang these multi-billion dollar companies.
shevy-java 8mo ago
While that may be true, people need to start somewhere. Otherwise the future will just be even more sniffing done by private entities. Do we want a sneaky Skynet that looks more like 1984?
- joquarky 8mo ago
  The guy who is obsessed with using Lord of the Rings to name his companies certainly does want that.
trinsic2 8mo ago
Yea I noticed many of these sevices won't allow an email address not hosted with a provider that wasn't Google,Microsoft, or apple where they can collect other details. I think i tried to sign up for VanceAI, it would only accept gmail or discord connected account as a sign in.
- rsync 8mo ago
  "... tried to sign up for VanceAI, it would only accept gmail or discord connected account as a sign in ..." I don't know what "VanceAI" is but I am confused ... why would they not want corporate (as in, Fortune 500) users to sign up ?
iugtmkbdfil834 8mo ago
Oh well, I guess there is nothing to be done. Pack it up everyone. It is over. You can't do anything. No one can learn anything. No. You heard the guy above. It is over. Go home. Do nothing.
- oceansky 8mo ago
  I don't mean to say that nothing can be done, I was just agreeing that it's often more complicated than it looks.
  - bdangubic 8mo ago
    it is not complicated at all if you have resolve and understand what the ramifications of not doing anything are. I quit all social media 6 years ago, thought it would be hard, took about a week total to not even think about it. had same “trouble” in school with whatsapp groups and whatnot, threatened to sue, everything got moved to the SMS within a week………

iririririr 8mo ago

Talking about anti-tech-monopolies and using Stripe-paypal is extra ironic. I can understand aws, youtube, being on google index, and other things as they sometimes are the most cost efficient or vendors don't offer alternatives... but stripe-paypal is more expensive and worse than the less-bad alternatives. jeez.

ironsmoke 8mo ago

Perfect is the enemy of good.

miyuru 8mo ago

his app has also Google, Apple logins and for first time I have seen, login with meta button. https://app.wordsunite.us/ https://app.wordsunite.us/

jbstack 8mo ago

It doesn't have to be a binary choice between "don't use it ever" and "continue using it as much as you are now". If people stopped using these services 50% of the time, it would have a huge impact.

random2021 8mo ago
In concept what you say is correct but reality is complex. There are very few providers that implement friction free login/password and importantly security. A large number of email providers didn't implement 2FA until very recently. Even those that have terrible apps, ad infested, no app password or oAuth etc. so many governments use MS hosted services. It is akin to Visa/MasterCard duopoly. It is hard to escape but even if one does it then it resulted only inconvenience. I still don't have my cards in phone - neither will google change path nor will govts force a change.
- jbstack 8mo ago
  I don't see any contradiction here with what I said. If you feel that using Google for email is unavoidable, that can be the part that you keep using. You can still easily ditch a lot of other things. E.g. Pixel phone, Google Docs, Google Drive, AWS. Each of those has plenty of, arguably better, alternatives.
  - random2021 8mo ago
    > Each of those has plenty of, arguably better, alternatives. That's the incorrect premise - for that 50% that you hope to ditch. Pixel phone is not inherently bad. One can even buy them second hand. The information lock in from US is impossible to escape for majority of connected world citizens.
    - jbstack 8mo ago
      I don't understand your point. We're talking about ways to reduce dependence on big corp products. Some people object on the basis that it's not always feasible. I've responded that it doesn't have to be all or nothing. You've identified some products that you think you can't move away from. I've identified some that I think you probably can, and acknowledged that you might still by stuck with those others. I don't see how your latest comment fits in. In the context of the present debate, Pixel phone is inherently bad because it's a Google product. You're putting money in Google's bank account when you buy one, and you're running your phone the way Google wants you to. The point of the debate is whether it's feasible to move away from such things. In the case of a Pixel phone, it is possible (to some extent, anyway).

nxpnsv 8mo ago

But you can still reduce your exposure. Giving in to hopelessness seems suboptimal.

wordsunite 8mo ago

The comments are fair. My post was quick and lacked details as I was frustrated in the ever increasing enshitification of the web. What I meant to convey, from my personal experience, is that it seemed hard to get off of platforms like X, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon Prime, Alexa, Ring, Google Photos, etc. but then I did it and didn’t miss them. These small moves by a lot of people, I believe, can still make a difference. It’s not perfect, but it’s something. Do I still use some services? Of course, I have Gmail and WhatsApp, and use a lot of Apple products. When I can, I choose intentionally what I use since there’s no perfect companies out there, but there are “better” ones (whatever that may be in one’s opinion). I chose cloudflare for hosting and Anthropic for vibe coding. Allowing people to use existing login info versus exposing them to more risk with self managed auth was a choice I made. There are tons of choices we make every day so trying to be more intentional is a good start. Nobody is perfect, but we can try to improve each day in these choices we make.

Gormo 8mo ago

I don't think using AWS has quite the same privacy implications to using Amazon's own SaaS services.

m3kw9 8mo ago

It’s hard that’s why he is still using it